Raymond Poincare

Raymond Poincare (20 August 1860-15 October 1934) was President of France from 18 February 1913 to 18 February 1920, succeeding Armand Fallieres and preceding Paul Deschanel, and Prime Minister from 15 January 1922 to 1 June 1924 (succeeding Aristide Briand and preceding Frederic Francois-Marsal) and again from 23 July 1926 to 26 July 1929 (succeeding Edouard Herriot and preceding Briand).

Biography
Raymond Poincare was born in Bar-le-Duc, France on 20 August 1860, and he became a lawyer in 1880, the youngest lawyer in France (at the age of 20). In 1887, the young Poincare was elected to the Chamber of Deputies for Meuse, and he affiliated himself with the liberal Opportunists. In 1893 and 1895, he served as Minister of Education, and he also served as Finance Minister from 1894 to 1895 and in 1906. Poincare was known to be passionate about cats, to hold conservative views without being an idealist, and to be paranoid about his enemy Georges Clemenceau, a liberal leader in the country. In 1913, Poincare became President of France, and he was in favor of increasing relations with the German Empire rather than going to war. He made the office of President a powerful seat, the first president since Patrice de MacMahon to hold any power in the office. Poincare reinforced the alliance with the Russian Empire after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in 1914, leading to France entering World War I as an ally of Russia when Germany and Austria-Hungary declared war. During the war, the Prime Minister held all the power, and Clemenceau took over the reigns of government in 1917. Poincare would serve as premier from 1922 to 1924 and from 1926 to 1929, and Poincare ordered the 1923 occupation of the Ruhr region of Germany to extract war reparations after the Weimar Republic refused to pay any to France. Poincare died in 1934 at the age of 74.